INTEL Core i7-990X Extreme Edition

[sieungau96]

What kind of user should buy INTEL Core i7-990X Extreme. Beside the fact that it VERY EXPENSIVE, why it not fit for the gamer or regular user? (I heard something like game and regular software just programmed to use 4 core, so the other 2 core is wasted).
And is there any chance that Intel i7 2600k will be significantly discount by the end of the year (christmas eve)

 

[abekl]

The people who can make use of a cpu like this are those doing scientific research, statistics, 3D rendering, large spreadsheets and databases, etc..

 

[13thmonkey]

its only a bit better than the lower 6 cores, its for bragging and brand agrandisement. i don't see the 2600 coming down, the 2700 is on its way, rumoured at its own price point.

I can easily see that programming for 2 cores is different than for 1 core, and for more than 2 cores is different from just 2 cores, but I see more than 2 as just being n cores and so anything that can use 4 will use 6, the problem with them is that there are often faster cores on 4 core cpus, as heat is less of a problem. I'm hearing of people with 2600's were bf3 beta is using all 8 cores.

sandy is better than previous generation. And the X chips (only one model on sale at any time, and always the same price point) are only that price because there'll be someone to buy them, not because they are worth that much, the X chips are not 2-3x quicker than the chip priced at $300 or so, typically it might only be 1.25-1.5x quicker.

 

[jaguarskx]

The INTEL Core i7-990X Extreme is a great CPU in general if you are doing something that can actually use all six cores and Hyper Threading for a total of 12 threads that can be processed somewhat simultnaeously. Not exactly a 12 core CPU though.

The problem with games is that they don't use more than 4 cores and they do not make use of Hyper Threading.

Anandtech did a CPU performance test either earlier this year or late last year of games that can take advantage of 4 cores. On average, the performance increase from 2 cores to 3 cores was about 26%, the performance increase from 3 cores to 4 cores was a meager 6%.

Of course this excludes minor details like a dual Core i3-2100 (3.1Ghz) can outperform the quad core Phenom II X4 980 BE (3.7GHz) in games.

 

[IntelEnthusiast]

There are two real areas where the Intel® Core™ i7-990X Extreme Edition shines. Those two area are extreme multi-threading (things like audio/video creation) and extreme multi-tasking (have a bunch of apps up all at once doing something). Outside of these 2 areas you can get better preformance from some of our 2nd generation Intel Core processors then you can with the Intel Core i7-990X.

Christian Wood
Intel Enthusiast Team